Outrage as French teens film assault on disabled man

Three French teenagers have been detained after they filmed themselves assaulting a young mentally disabled man and posted the footage on Facebook, sparking widespread outrage, a police source said Tuesday.

The video filmed on Sunday in the southeastern town of Fontaine shows two of the boys pushing the 18-year-old in a park, making him fall and shouting at him before shoving him into a stream, from which the bewildered-looking victim emerges and walks away.

According to the police source, a 14-year-old and 15-year-old were detained on Monday over the assault, and two other boys were held on Tuesday.

One of the boys, a 12-year-old, was released and sent home after being questioned.

The victim was not hurt in the incident, which Marie-Arlette Carlotti, junior minister for the disabled, described as “hugely shocking” and a “barbaric assault”.

French prosecutors are due to question the three teenagers later on Tuesday.

The outrage over the filmed incident follows a similar outcry over a video posted on the Internet showing a 24-year-old Frenchman hurling a kitten through the air.

Farid Ghilas was arrested in the southern city of Marseille last week and sentenced to a year in prison on Monday.

The five-month-old kitten, shown mewling and traumatised in the video, survived but suffered a broken leg and is facing surgery.